In 2005 Kaye & I were fortunate to be able to acquire Nindooinbah from Tim Stevens who inherited this wonderful property in two parts. In the first instance from the Estate of his uncle Patrick Hockey and then from estate of the Margaret...

Nindooinbah as a whole
Nindooinbah in 2005 presents layers of use and occupation accumulated since the first pastoralists arrived in the 1840s and the first substantial house was built in 1858. This complex layering expresses successive owners’...

Margaret Hockey died in 2004 and the property passed out of Collins-Persse family ownership to Patrick Hockey’s nephew. In June 2005, the property was sold at auction. At a subsequent auction, much of the important collection of furniture...

Patrick Hockey came from a grazing background, having grown up on Abercorn near Eidsvold in the Burnett district, where many earlier owners of Nindooinbah had taken up stations. Hockey became a well-known artist, whose work is featured in major...

Margaret Persse married the well-known Australian artist, Patrick Hockey in 1983. Nindooinbah was valued in 1981 in order to finalise William Collins’ estate in September 1983. His heirs were Gwendoline Collins and her three daughters and one...

In the 1940s and 1950s, horses were kept on both sides of woolshed. Although the main drive into Nindooinbah remained in the alignment marked by the avenue planted by Gwendoline Collins, the fence-line on the western entrance and the entrance...

The main bedroom was always reserved for her. Mr and Mrs Persse used the adjoining bedroom and Margaret used the nursery bedroom with Miss Lucy Morgan, her nurse/ governess in the adjoining room. Beryl Persse was keenly interested in the garden...

Further changes to the house were prompted by the Prince of Wales proposed visit to Nindooinbah in July 1920. Dods’ entry porch was replaced by a ‘tented ballroom’, usually referred to in subsequent decades as the morning room or the sunroom. A...

‘Captain Towns sold the stations with 2800 head of cattle about 200 horses – six hundred and forty acres purchased land with a house which cost £3000 and other improvements and is worth £1000 more than £7400 sold to Ernest last Christmas; he does...

Respected as a beef cattle expert, William Collins intended to use Nindooinbah to fatten cattle for the frozen meat trade which he had helped to pioneer in the 1870s. He was also a co-founder of the North Australian Pastoral Company with his...